Ethereum’s $3M grassroot grant program suddenly paused as Foundation rethinks priorities

The Ethereum Foundation has paused caller grant applications to its Ecosystem Support Program (ESP) arsenic it reconsiders however it funds builders and projects.

The pause, announced Aug. 29, comes arsenic the Foundation restructures its attack to ecosystem improvement and looks to align its grantmaking with longer-term priorities.

A elaborate roadmap outlining caller backing priorities is expected successful the 4th fourth of 2025.

While the unfastened grants transmission is temporarily paused, ESP volition proceed supporting existing grantees and backing nationalist goods. The squad besides pledged to support Office Hours, wherever builders tin person guidance, feedback, oregon connections to non-financial resources.

Why the Ethereum Foundation is pausing grants

The enactment said Ethereum’s accelerated maturation successful size and complexity has created unit to accommodate its backing model. Instead of continuing with a strategy that reacts to assistance requests arsenic they travel in, the Foundation wants ESP to displacement toward proactively backing projects that code strategical needs.

This modulation volition guarantee resources are deployed wherever they tin person the astir lasting interaction connected Ethereum’s usability and resilience.

It added:

“This alteration volition alteration america clip to redesign successful a mode that redirects our absorption toward strategical initiatives, moving from a reactive exemplary to a much proactive 1 that besides supports the priorities of different EF teams.”

Meanwhile, the Foundation emphasized that its values stay unchanged. These see backing open-source infrastructure, research, and developer tools; supporting assemblage initiatives; and strengthening resources that payment the wider Ethereum network.

Since its instauration successful 2018, ESP has evolved from a elemental grants programme into a broader inaugural providing fiscal and non-financial backing for Ethereum builders.

In 2024 alone, it distributed astir $3 cardinal across 105 projects, spanning developer tooling, information analytics, education, research, and assemblage events.

Some of the past beneficiaries see Commit-Boost, BundleBear, Web3Bridge, ZK Playbook, and the Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress.

The station Ethereum’s $3M grassroot assistance programme abruptly paused arsenic Foundation rethinks priorities appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.